Friday 12 October 2007

Click on “Listener Advisory Board” and take the survey yourself! The new survey starts off blah enough (Bangles?) but then builds up to an astonishing climax.

Is Gene McDaniels the most ubiquitous unknown pop star? I’m guessing that 9 out of 10 people you ask won’t know who he is, yet every nostalgia show in the world feels obliged to play at least one of “Tower of Strength”, “Chip Chip”, or “Point of No Return” every day. I’ve only just learned his name now by copying and pasting it from the survey website.

Also, I’d never heard of Toni Arden’s “Padre” before, and the excerpt provided in the survey gives a very misleading impression of what the song is really about. I only know this because I just tuned in to Magic again last night, and – hey! – they played “Padre”.

As on previous occasions, songs with that special ‘Magic’ quality are marked with an asterisk: pick of the bunch here has to be the Ronnie Burns. Once again, all survey songs were marked with at least “like” or better, with one exception (no, not the Bangles).